Irradiated Food Is Too Pure for Our Own Good

Published: September 2, 1997

To the Editor:

Richard Rhodes's ode to food irradiation (''Food Safety's Waiting Weapon,'' Op-Ed, Aug. 28) lacks balance. Yes, gamma rays can kill the harmful bacteria in food, but one big problem is that they kill the helpful microflora, too. Bacteria are not just agents of disease. The vast majority of live bacteria we ingest are positive aids to digestion, competing with unhealthy bacteria for space in our intestinal tracts.

Without live bacteria, our bodies could not produce vitamin B12 or break down milk sugars, for example. Americans already suffer from a paucity of fresh, raw foods containing the live bacteria we need.

Food and Drug Administration regulations that limit food irradiation to certain classes of foods are premised on the fact that to irradiate all food would cause a greater threat to health than sporadic outbreaks of food poisoning, which usually signal lapses in hygiene or good animal husbandry.

As Mr. Rhodes says, pasteurization saved lives. But only probably, for it also resulted in the dietary elimination of vital live organisms like lactobacillus acidophilus. We are now beginning to add such bacteria back into milk at increased cost. To do this for all foods would be impossible, technically and economically.

Mr. Rhodes is right to say that Americans have an irrational fear of radioactivity. But the horrors of the atomic bomb gave rise to an equal and opposite irrationality: uncritical belief in the redemptive potential of atomic energy. One need not be a Luddite to recognize the cult of nuclear idolatry.

GEOFFREY SEA

Oakland, Calif., Aug. 28, 1997

The writer, a radiological health physicist, is director, Atomic Reclamation and Conversion Project.